Of Balls and Bad Dancing
by genies
Summary: Scorpius has always been terrible at dancing and is very nervous about a certain Yule Ball.


**For Rose.**

 **WC: 786**

* * *

Scorpius was definitely one hundred percent not going to the Yule Ball, for a few reasons. One, the last time he danced was when someone had cast a tarantallegra on him, and that had scarred his opinion of dancing for the rest of his life. Two, he had ballroom dancing lessons when he was a child, as most Pureblood children do, and he had pitifully not improved for the entire course, which happened to be eight months. And three, the most important reason, he had no desire to humiliate himself.

Scorpius was just resigned. He knew that he wasn't going to get any better at moving his limbs the way he wanted them to move, which would be humiliating in itself, but he also knew that his housemates would be asking dates to the ball. Well, Scorpius didn't want to risk denial, or a girl screaming at him, "you're stepping on my feet!"

The only person who might go with him was his friend Rose, but she was probably going with someone else. After all, it was the week before the ball, and most of the girls had been asked by someone already.

This particular evening, Scorpius was pulling his hair out over a page filled with ancient runes as Rose hurriedly scribbled her Arithmancy essay. The deal was this: Scorpius helped her with Potions, and she edited his papers.

At least, that had been the deal in the beginning. Now, they just tended to study together and complain.

"Roooose," Scorpius groaned. She had been ignoring him for far too long, and he had to rectify that.

"Whaaat." Rose snapped up from her paper, her curls bouncing.

"I'm going to die."

"Well, that's inevitable. Do you have something important to say?"

"No, I'm going to die _at the hands_ of Ancient Runes." Scorpius thunked his head into the table but quickly sat up again as he realized he had put his head on wet ink.

Rose raised her eyebrows in mock distaste. "Check out your new look."

Scorpius wiped of his forehead with his tie. A _Scourgify_ would work for that tie later. He pointed his wand at his head and muttered a quick cleaning spell.

"Anyway," he said with a flair of his robes. "I require your assistance."

"Please?"

"Please."

Rose laughed and grabbed his paper. "Well, now you've smudged the runes, so you've got to start over. What's the assignment?"

"Um, that's a secret."

"Oh, really?"

Scorpius pretended to busy himself with organizing his books. "Yes, really."

"And why is that?"

Scorpius sighed dramatically. "If you must know, it's a bit of extra credit."

"What the hell? I ask for extra credit and I get nothing, but he gives it to you in a blink of an eye. Don't tell me our professor doesn't play favorites." Rose sat back into her chair and folded her arms in thought. Scorpius guessed that she was probably thinking of ways to use this against the professor to squeeze some extra credit out of him

Wrong move, Scorpuis thought to himself. He should not have mentioned extra credit.

"In fact," Rose started slowly, "I'm going to go over there right now before he forgets he gave you this opportunity."

Scorpius suddenly grabbed her by the arm. He fixed an intense stare on Rose's face and with a stern voice, said, "Please sit."

Rose looked around her for a moment, checking for any signs that products from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes had been placed around the library. When she was satisfied, she sat, still a bit wary. "Yes?"

Scorpius leaned in to her with a secretive look. "Look, you can't tell anyone this."

"I love secrets!" Rose stage-whispered back.

"Shhh!" Scorpius chided. "Keep it down."

"Fine, okay."

"Okay. Here it is. I'm making a set of runes that will make me dance perfectly."

"What?"

"I know, it's genius, isn't it!"

"But _why?_ This could be dangerous!"

"Because there's no other way." Scorpius leaned back, feeling satisfied that he had let the cat out of the bag.

Rose looked at him with a sideways glance, trying to gauge his motives. "Hmmm…" she said, tapping her chin. "I think I know what's going on."

Scorpius jerked his head to the side, started. "What?"

"I could just teach you, you know."

"Many have tried, Rose. You're not the first to think you could change me."

"Or you could find a person whose feet don't mind being stepped on," she said. She raised her eyebrows suggestively.

Scorpius felt blood rushing to his ears. Was she proposing something? Well, he'd gone this far, so might as well. "And do your feet mind being stepped on?"

"Not particularly," she said.

They gave each other bright smiles.


End file.
